Romans 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
As I was compiling Worthy News today, we reported that the hostages taken by Hamas have now been in captivity for 500 days. One released hostage shared how, while thousands in Israel were advocating for them, their captors fed them lies, saying, “Nobody cares about you, and no one is coming for you.”
This reminded me of a story about a man who was imprisoned during Napoleon’s reign. While sulking in his dungeon one day, he etched on the wall the words “Nobody Cares.”
A few weeks later, through a crack in the dungeon floor, a little green shoot sprang forth, reaching toward the tiny ray of sunlight that came from his small prison cell window. The prisoner began giving a portion of his daily water to the little shoot and it began to grow. One morning the man awoke to a beautiful flower. A tear rolling down his face, he crossed out the words, “Nobody Cares” and replaced them with “God Cares.”
The story goes on to tell that His devotion to the flower was reported to the Empress Josephine. She was so very moved that she convinced Napoleon to set the man free.
How many times do we feel like “Nobody Cares”? God has planted little shoots of hope in each and every one of our difficult circumstances — do you know that? Perhaps we’re stepping on them, not even noticing they exist. Perhaps we’re pulling the shoots before they spring forth into beautiful flowers.
But if we take a moment to look around, we may find that God has already planted seeds of hope in our lives, waiting to bloom. Even in the darkest of dungeons, even when the enemy whispers, “Nobody cares,” God is always present, nurturing life where despair once reigned.
So today, choose to see the small signs of His love, the tiny green shoots breaking through the cracks of your struggles. Water them with faith, nurture them with prayer, and watch as God transforms your sorrow into beauty. No matter how bleak things seem, remember this—God cares, He sees, and He has never stopped working for your freedom.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
More Devotions
For the past two weeks we have examined lessons from the OT account of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt in hope of avoiding the errors and attitudes of the children of Israel. This week we will draw connections between the Exodus and the prophecies in the book of Revelation.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve begun a series of devotions based on the Exodus wanderings of the Children of Israel, and their tragic mistakes which we can learn from and avoid. One powerful influence common to their failures was fear.
The Lord spoke to Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt to be desperately cornered with the Red sea before them and Pharaoh’s chariots advancing upon them from behind. Overwhelmed with terror they cry out to Moses, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Having just miraculously escaped from the miserable life of slavery, and only beginning their new life of freedom, the children of Israel were faced with the most dire threat to their existence.
While John warned against deception in the last days, and we should be mindful and discerning the times in which we live, keenly aware of the rise of the spirit of Antichrist — he also gave us encouragement: “…you have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”